Lars Gunnar Lars Gunnar Bodin

Joseph Boismortier was a French Baroque composer who had to live by his wits, having no patrons or prestigious positions. The notes for this CD quote Jean-Benjamin’s assessment in 1780: “Happy is he, Boismortier, whose fertile quill each month, without pain, conceives new airs at will.” Boismortier, for lack of a better answer to his critics, would always answer: “I am earning money.” His four Ballets de Village are rustic suites that make extensive use of the musette and hurdy-gurdy, instruments considered country cousins, not to be used in “serious” music. Boismortier writes for them with great skill; the droning din they set up is most appealing.

Bror Gunnar's brand new release is what one could call True Crime Music. Many of the songs are based on known criminal investigations and most of them from Sweden. One case in particular was indeed literary close to home. With a knife killer breaking into people's home on the same street where Bror Gunnar lives. The title song is based on the gruesome murder of Catrine da Costa in 1984. Where the Police found the remains of a woman in a couple of garbage bags ditched by the side of a road in the outskirts of Stockholm. All body parts were found except for the head, and the perpetrator was never found.

The period instrument ensemble, Arcanum, presents a beautiful program of works by Boismortier. The baroque ensemble Arcanum was born when Tony Boutte (tenor) and Colin St. Martin (traverso) were asked to put together a concert for the International Conference on the History of Alchemy and Chymistry, held in Philadelphia, PA during the summer of 2007. The concert focused on music that was in some way connected with alchemy, chemistry or magic. One meaning for the term "arcanum" is "a deep secret or mystery" which suited the theme of the event well. The concert was extremely well received, and the ensemble (made up of the two core members, plus harpsichord, cello, violin and viola) was encouraged to continue.

First performed in Paris in 1747 – a time when the tragédie lyrique, the genre which Lully had brought to its peak, was already in evident decline – Daphnis et Chloé is a pastorale within which lurks a ballet with a bergère storyline, and which is blessed with a plot which, although mythological in content, is of great lightness; this neatly matched the taste of the nobility of the time and even more so that of Madame de Pompadour with its recreation of an idealized pastoral world… By then the taste for Boismortier’s music had gone stale… until now!